38 deg.. Rashiduddin calls it
Leung-Shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so called in the
heart of Shensi.
The name of the place before which Polo represents him as mortally wounded
is very variously given. According to Gaubil, Chinghiz was in reality
dangerously wounded by an arrow-shot at the siege of Taitongfu in 1212.
And it is possible, as Oppert suggests, that Polo's account of his death
before Caagiu (as I prefer the reading), arose out of a confusion
between this circumstance and those of the death of Mangku Kaan, which
is said to have occurred at the assault of Hochau in Sze-ch'uan, a name
which Polo would write Caagiu, or nearly so. Abulfaragius specifically
says that Mangku Kaan died by an arrow; though it is true that other
authors say he died of disease, and Haiton that he was drowned; all which
shows how excusable were Polo's errors as to events occurring 50 to 100
years before his time. (See Oppert's Presbyter Johannes, p. 76; De
Mailla, IX. 275, and note; Gaubil, 18, 50, 52, 121; Erdmann, 443;
Ss. Setzen, 103.)
It is only by referring back to ch. xlvii., where we are told that
Chinghiz "began to think of conquering a great part of the world," that we
see Polo to have been really aware of the vast extent and aim of the
conquests of Chinghiz; the aim being literally the conquest of the world
as he conceived it; the extent of the empire which he initiated actually
covering (probably) one half of the whole number of the human race.
